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Catherine-Ann MacPhee (Cathy-Ann MacPhee; Scottish Gaelic: Catriona-Anna Nic a' Phi; born 1959) is a Scottish Gaelic singer from Barra in the Hebrides, now resident in Canada. She has worked in the theatre and broadcasting as well as giving musical performances in Scotland, England, Canada and elsewhere. After a period living in Ottawa she moved to Halifax, Nova Scotia, in 2017. [1]
Catherine-Ann was born on 21 November 1959 in the Island of Barra, Scotland where she grew up with Scottish Gaelic as her first language. Electricity did not reach the island until she was six. At the age of five she started singing at candle-lit ceilidhs in the little village of Eoligarry. During the summer she sang for tourists. At the age of seventeen she joined "Fir Chlis" (Northern Lights). It was the first Scottish Gaelic repertory theatre company and did work for radio and television including the 1979 BBC Scotland Gaelic language course Can Seo. Following budget cuts the company ended after three years. She moved to the Isle of Mull, where she worked in a bar in Tobermory, but soon joined John McGrath's English-speaking 7:84 theatre company. [2] She traveled with them to Leningrad, Tbilisi, Toronto, Cape Breton and Berlin.
Ian Green from Greentrax Records heard her at a festival in Dingwall and offered a recording contract. Like her subsequent albums, all of the songs on Cànan Nan Gaidheal (The Language of the Gael) (1987) are in Gaelic, and most are traditional. One of the songs is by the Gaelic-speaking folk-rock group Runrig. The backing musicians include Tony Cuffe and William Jackson, both from the group Ossian.
Her second album, which is called Chi mi 'n Geamhradh after the first song, written by Calum and Rory MacDonald of Runrig, contains mostly traditional songs, though it has been described as "containing a bewildering range [in whose opinion?] of pop and New Age influences including drum machine, harp and bass guitar". It was probably the first time that "waulking songs" (work songs for women finishing tweed cloth) were treated this way.
The Mrs Ackyroyd Band is a loose association of singers who record perform comic parodies of folk music. In 1987 they undertook their only non-comic project, a song-cycle called The Stones of Callanish. MacPhee sang two of the songs on it.
The Highland Land League was an organisation devoted to resisting the Highland Clearances in the mid to late nineteenth century. Many songs were written by Màiri Mhór (Mary MacPherson) from Skye in support of their cause. In 1993 a biographical BBC TV film about Màiri Mhór was made in which Alyxis Daly played Màiri Mhór and MacPhee sang the soundtrack. [3] In the following year the soundtrack album was released. Some of these Gaelic songs are about the landscape of the highlands and represent a farewell to a way of life. In 1997 she recorded a live album at the 50th anniversary of the Edinburgh Festival.
BBC Radio nan Gàidheal is a Scottish Gaelic language radio station owned and operated by BBC Scotland, a division of the BBC. The station was launched in 1985 and broadcasts Gaelic-language programming with the simulcast of BBC Radio Scotland.
Anne Lorne Gillies is a Scottish singer, writer, and activist. She is a classically trained musician and a professional singer/songwriter.
Canadian Gaelic or Cape Breton Gaelic, often known in Canadian English simply as Gaelic, is a collective term for the dialects of Scottish Gaelic spoken in Atlantic Canada.
Murdo Macfarlane known as Bàrd Mhealboist was a published poet, songwriter and campaigner for Scottish Gaelic, especially during the 1970s, when the Ceartas movement was gaining strength.
Play Gaelic is the first album by the Scottish Celtic rock band Runrig. It was released in 1978 on LP and tape by Neptune Records. In 1990 it was re-released on CD by Lismor Recordings with different cover art.
Malcolm Macleod, BEM was a crofter who notably built Calum's Road on the Island of Raasay, Scotland. He was Local Assistant Keeper of Rona Lighthouse and the part-time postman for the north end of Raasay.
Fiona J. Mackenzie is a Scottish Gaelic Traditional singer from Dingwall in Scotland, and has toured and performed throughout Europe and North America. In 2005 she won the An Comunn Gàidhealach Gold Medal at the Royal National Mòd in Stornoway.
Mary Ann Kennedy, is a Scottish musician, singer, choral director, composer, radio and television presenter, and music producer.
Scottish Gaelic literature refers to literature composed in the Scottish Gaelic language and in the Gàidhealtachd communities where it is and has been spoken. Scottish Gaelic is a member of the Goidelic branch of Celtic languages, along with Irish and Manx.
Charles Fraser-Mackintosh was a Scottish lawyer, land developer, author, and independent Liberal and Crofters Party politician. He was a significant champion of the Scottish Gaelic language in Victorian Britain.
Alexander Mackenzie, was a Scottish historian, author, magazine editor and politician. He was born on a croft, in Gairloch. He had little opportunity for education and initially earned his living as a labourer and ploughman. In 1861 he became apprenticed in the clothes trade selling Scottish cloth in Colchester. In 1869 he settled in Inverness, where he and his brother set up a clothes shop in Clach na Cudainn House. From his business premises he derived his nickname 'Clach na Cudainn' or simply 'Clach'. He later became an editor and publisher of the Celtic Magazine, and the Scottish Highlander. Mackenzie wrote numerous clan histories. He was a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland. A founder member of the Gaelic Society of Inverness, Mackenzie was elected an 'Honorary Chieftain' in 1894.
Flora MacNeil, MBE was a Scottish Gaelic Traditional singer. MacNeil gained prominence after meeting Alan Lomax and Hamish Henderson during the early 1950s, and continued to perform into her later years.
Isabella Margaret MacAskill was a heritage activist and traditional Scottish Gaelic singer and teacher, often referred to as the "Gaelic diva".
Mary MacPherson, known as Màiri Mhòr nan Òran or simply Màiri Mhòr, was a Scottish Gaelic poet from the Isle of Skye, whose work focused on the Highland Clearances and the land struggle. Although she could read her own work when written she could not write it in Gaelic. She retained her songs and poems in her memory until others wrote them down for publication. She often referred to herself as Màiri Nighean Iain Bhàin, the name by which she would have been known in the Skye of her childhood.
John Murdoch was a Scottish newspaper owner and editor and land reform campaigner who played a significant part in the campaign for crofters rights in the late 19th century
Marcas Mac an Tuairneir is a writer and singer. He writes and publishes in Scottish Gaelic, English and Polari.
Kenna Campbell is a Scottish singer, teacher, tradition bearer and advocate for Gaelic language, culture and song.
Alistair Iain Paterson is a Scottish musician and composer from the village of Bishopton, Renfrewshire. He is one of the founding members of the Scottish folk band Barluath.
Morag Henriksen describes herself as a Highlander born and bred. Growing up in Lochcarron, where her father was the headmaster of the local school, she developed a life long love of Gaidhlig culture, folk music, singing, story telling and poetry and this informed her later work as a writer.
Sian is a Scottish all-female traditional band who are known for their Gaelic vocal harmonies and celebrating Gaelic songs composed by women. They formed to raise the prominence of work by female Gaelic bards, which might not have received much attention or credit otherwise.
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